The sunrise this morning was so liquid and golden and slow, it seemed to drape itself like something sheer, a fabric, a mantle of light, over the magnolia leaves, the thinning grass, the foliage of the elderwood, layering everything under sheer beauty. This season. How can we even bear the loveliness? Sometimes, I can’t. But, I do have some happy September writing news to share. First of all, an excerpt of my novel (the prologue and first chapter) was published recently in Narrative. Versions of the prologue have appeared in december magazine and Nowhere, but chapter one, which is the bulk of this excerpt, has never appeared in print until now, and I’m excited to share it with you. It’s called The Part That Burns and you can read it here. It feels good to have this sliver of hard work find its way into the world.

Second, my lovely and amazing daughter Sophie just landed a full-time writing job, no easy feat in today’s tough writing market! Sophie has been writing professionally since high school. By her first year of college, I was hiring Sophie to help with significant book projects, including the preliminary organization and drafting of The Good Caregiver, a book I co-wrote with the late Dr. Robert Kane. From there, she went on to write for many of my writing clients as well as scores of her own, while also building up a serious creative writing practice of her own (and a growing list of publications and awards to show for that commitment). To earn your way through life with your love of words—well, it can be an arduous path, but also a glorious one. I’m so happy for Sophie, so proud of her hard work, and so grateful to share a writing life with this amazing human who is not just a daughter, but also a best friend. Thankfully, Sophie will still be teaching with Elephant Rock this year, so stay tuned about upcoming classes with her.

Finally, our workshops and retreats are off to a great start this fall, as well! We have one last-minute opening in our Art of the Fractured remote writing workshop starting this Thursday, so do let me know right away if you would like to join us. We explore inventive and unusual fragmented writing forms. It’s original, challenging, and fun—and last year, several students went on to publish work produced in the class. Meanwhile, Write for Your Life, our October memoir intensive in Minneapolis, has two spots left. That workshop is a perennial favorite and a great fit for anyone serious about exploring the art of writing from life. And our beloved, deep fall offering for reclaiming and re-igniting creativity, the Mystery of Yin Retreat for Women Only in Grand Marais, Minnesota, has four spots left. We would love for you to join us.

Next time I write here, I’ll talk more about the creative nonfiction class I’ve been teaching at Moose Lake Correctional Facility. It’s been fabulous, and I’d love to tell you more about the class, my growth as a teacher, and the marvelous work of the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop.

September and October are my favorite months. My senses are on fire, my hair is full of wind. I am drunk on the bready smell of leaves and gentle decay. Giddy with the thrill of lukewarm sunshine on my bare skin. Mesmerized by reds and oranges and soaking rains. Craving outdoor night fires and dewey mornings. And, as always, eager to pin all this to the page, one way or the other. If you are eager, too, to ignite or re-ignite your writing practice this fall, consider an Elephant Rock writing class or workshop or retreat as a match strike for your creative fire?

Our fall classes are registering right now! (And PS, if you've attended an Elephant Rock class, workshop, or retreat in the last six months, you're up for a 15% discount on any remote class!).

Here's what's coming up first:

Beyond What You See: Writing Description (Mondays, September 10 - October 1): This new remote course is perfect for beginners. It focuses solely on the crucial art of description in creative writing, and how to rock it. It is offered as part of our brand-new Essential Series, which focuses on classes devoted to a single, crucial element of craft. This year, we’re also offering Essential Series courses on place, character, and plot. We’d love to see you in one of these intensives! Click here for more info.

The Art of the Fractured (Thursdays, September 20 – October 25): We taught this class last year and one writer said it was the best workshop she'd ever experienced in 30 years of writing workshops! My students at Moose Lake are also loving this course right now. We explore fragmented forms such as braids, collages, erasures, list essays, and more. It's a blast, and last fall, several students ended up publishing work generated during the course. Click here for more info.

Write for Your Life Memoir Intensive (October 26-28): Just two spots left! This is our most rigorous, craft-focused workshop on bringing your lived experience to life on the page. It’s challenging, intense, inspiring, and full of fun surprises. In an encouraging and engaged small group, you’ll learn why “what happened” is never enough, and how to transform a well-worn story into arresting art that brings others to their knees. This workshop guaranteed to leave you with some work in progress and a whole set of new skills for life writing. Write for Your Life takes place in Minneapolis and runs Friday evening 6-9 pm and 10-4 pm Saturday and Sunday. Click here for more info.

Mystery of Yin Retreat for Writing and Yoga (November 15-18): Half full, so reach out soon! Mystery of Yin, for women only, is an all-inclusive very deep dive and intensely nourishing creative retreat where you are invited to access your deepest imaginings and bring them forth on the page through carefully crafted writing exercises that engage the mystery of the unconscious. Daily yoga, meditation, and art, plus delicious meals and a nonstop crackling fire in the stone hearth and the crashing of the waves. This sell-out retreat is held at the amazing Naniboujou Lodge on the North Shore of Lake Superior. We hope you’ll join us! Click here for more info.

See what people love about our retreats, workshops, and classes here. If you have questions, just reply to this email and we will do our best to answer them. And, as always, if you have any barriers to attendance, financial or otherwise, let us know and we'll see if there's a way to make it work for you. We would love to write with you! Meanwhile, have a very happy long fall weekend, and don't forget to notice everything during this most fleeting of seasons.

The barn that I worked in during July, built by Edna St. Vincent Millay

August is upon us, the apples are pulpy on the sidewalks, and the sun is lower in the sky. Take note of all the changes unfolding around us. It's breathtaking. Already I am filled up and emptied out, both, from spending all of July at Millay Colony for the Arts. Such an intense experience. I am so very happy to be home—with a better novel to show for it. I’ll keep you posted on next steps as they develop. Fingers crossed!

Another thing I have to show for my time away? Well, Sophie and I developed a full schedule of Elephant Rock offerings for the upcoming academic year, September 2018 through June 2019. Because our retreats and classes are small and tend to fill quickly, we wanted, as a new courtesy to you and to us as teachers, to set a schedule well in advance. We hope you love it! We also hope to see you in some of these writing spaces, both in the physical world and online. Our fall classes, registering now, are:

The Art of the Fractured (Thursdays, September 20 – October 5): This exploration of fragmented forms was our most popular remote class last year—it was a blast, and some students ended up publishing work generated during the course. Fractured is a chance to experiment with new forms and see what you can take away. Registration has begun, so reach out now to hold a spot.

Beyond What You See: Writing Description (Mondays, September 10 - October 1): This new remote course focuses solely on the crucial art of description in creative writing, and how to rock it. It is offered as part of our brand-new Essential Series, which focuses on classes devoted to a single, crucial element of craft. This year, we’re also offering Essential Series courses on place, character, and plot. We’d love to see you in one of these intensives!

Write for Your Life Memoir Intensive (October 26-28): Write for Your Life takes place in Minneapolis and runs Friday evening 6-9 pm and 10-4 pm Saturday and Sunday. This is our most rigorous, craft-focused workshop on bringing your lived experience to life on the page. It’s challenging, intense, inspiring, and full of fun surprises. In an encouraging and engaged small group, you’ll learn why “what happened” is never enough, and how to transform a well-worn story into arresting art that brings others to their knees. This workshop guaranteed to leave you with some work in progress and a whole set of new skills for life writing.

Mystery of Yin Retreat for Writing and Yoga (November 15-18): Mystery of Yin, for women only, is an all-inclusive very deep dive and intensely nourishing creative retreat where you are invited to access your deepest imaginings and bring them forth on the page through carefully crafted writing exercises that engage the mystery of the unconscious. Daily yoga, meditation, and art, plus delicious meals and a nonstop crackling fire in the stone hearth and the crashing of the waves. This sell-out retreat is held at the amazing Naniboujou Lodge on the North Shore of Lake Superior. We hope you’ll join us!

And if you want to know what others have had to say about our retreats, workshops, and classes, read recent reviews here. If you have questions, just reply to this email and we will do our best to answer them! We look forward to an incredible year of writing with you!

That's how I feel about my big birthday month of April, and its many new experiences, including three weeks abroad in China and New Zealand with my daughter, Lillie, plus her girlfriend and my husband. The four of us made memories of a lifetime. That's Lillie and me above, crossing a bridge in Hangzhou.

It broke me open is also what one writer said just yesterday about last year's Summer Solstice Retreat. She described the week as a sublime experience and wonderful investment in yourself on a deep emotional and spiritual level. Another writer simply said, Magic. A third said, Yes, that's it, exactly. If magic and breaking open are your thing, on the page and in life, consider joining us? It's the best way I know of for firing up your writing life in a profound and lasting way. Since last summer, our Solstice writers have gone on to publish essays, poems, and stories in literary journals (some for the very first time!), win writing contests, attend writing conferences, and participate in more writing workshops and classes. They've carried the burning fire of the retreat straight through the year, and you can too. We have two spots left and we want you to join us!

As for other news, our Mystery of Yin retreat coincided with an historic Minnesota blizzard which really added to the beauty and drama of the North Shore. What could have been incredibly stressful was instead an unforgettable adventure thanks to the amazing group of women who attended. We'll be announcing the date for the November Yin retreat soon.

Finally, some really great writing news for me. I had an excerpt of my novel selected as a finalist by Narrative Magazine in their Winter Story Contest, and it will appear in a forthcoming issue.

I AM SO EXCITED! Narrative is the big time for this little writer.

Meanwhile, another piece was just selected as a finalist in The Iowa Review Awards, with contest results to be announced later this month. If Narrative is the big time, Iowa is the cream of the crop. I'm feeling very grateful for the way my work is being recognized. Also very honored to announce that I will be teaching a creative nonfiction class at Moose Lake Correctional Facility this fall through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, my first in-the-prison class after two years of prison mentoring. I'm so grateful for this opportunity to serve. Other things too tenuous to announce, but lots of reasons to be hopeful for the summer ahead! Inch by inch it's a cinch, and it all starts with waking up, really waking up, and then showing up over and over and over again.

If you're ready to do the same, we'd love to see you on the island this June for our Sixth Annual Summer Solstice Retreat or one of our other retreats or classes. Watch for a full schedule soon or just get in touch, and let's write!

"We are here to witness the creation and abet it. We are here to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed. Together we notice not only each mountain shadow and each stone on the beach but, especially, we notice the beautiful faces and complex natures of each other. We are here to bring to consciousness the beauty and power that are around us and to praise the people who are here with us. We witness our generation and our times. We watch the weather. Otherwise, creation would be playing to an empty house."—Annie Dillard

Hi, dear friends! Guess who's turning 50 on April 9? Yep, that's right, I am! That's not me in the inner tube, but if you've been with me at Summer Solstice, you know I like my water noodles. And you know, too, that if there's something that I love and that changes me, it's water. Okay, also fire. Yes, of course I like earth and air, too, just not as much, haha. I mean, I'm an April baby!

Anyway, one way I am celebrating this momentous birthday is with a reading from my novel on April 10 at SubText Books in St. Paul at 7 PM. Will you please join me?! There might even be cake! I'll be reading alongside the fantastic Allison Coffelt, whose debut book, Maps Are Lines We Draw, was just published by Lanternfish this month! It would be my birthday delight to many of your friendly faces in the crowd.

After that reading, I'm celebrating again with a weekend at Naniboujou for our beloved Mystery of Yin Retreat for women, for which we have just one spot left. This retreat combines writing, yoga, art, and the colossal power of Lake Superior's North Shore to empower the creative feminine. This three-day retreat will take you to new places in your writing and in yourself. Please claim that last spot if it's yours!

After Yin, I am off to Shanghai with my husband to visit our youngest daughter (who's been living in China for the past few years) and her girlfriend. We cannot wait! I've never traveled somewhere that far away, and my fluent-in-Mandarin baby will be our gracious guide. We're even taking a "side trip" to New Zealand while we are there! I'm beside myself with excitement, like a little kid running around in circles.

When I get back from China, as in, the day after I get back!, we start our first remote personal essay class, which is already half full! We are thrilled because we know it's going to be great. If you want to reimagine what personal writing looks like and get three solid starts on new essays that are brazen, fiery, subtle, taut, electric, or smooth, but above all, true, join us! I'll be co-teaching with Sophie again, so you know it will be lots of fun.

When the essay class is over, it's off to Stout's Island for the Sixth Annual Summer Solstice Retreat for Writing and Yoga. You probably already know that Summer Solstice is our biggest, brightest retreat of the year. We live into that island with all we've got, and by the time we leave, none of us are quite the same. If you're ready to dive deep into new waters with your writing (and your life?), Summer Solstice Retreat is for you. My life hasn't been the same since the first one, and it just keeps getting better.

After Solstice Retreat, another of our daughters gets married, and the celebration is at our house! Just days after that, I'll be off to Millay Colony for the Arts in Upstate New York for another month-long residency, which is the most incredible honor. If everything goes as I hope, I'll be there working on my second novel manuscript as well as the Elephant Rock creative writing sourcebook. That's all I can say for now, but things are looking good on the writing front, hard though the work may be, and it surely is hard, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

I hope your creative life, too, is showing signs of waking up as winter finally, finally gives way to spring. I very much hope to see and write with some of you in the weeks and months ahead!

It's true, this writing thing can be damn hard. Partly because writing is so solitary, and there's simply no way around that. However, a vibrant writing community can help a whole lot! We would love to have you join ours this spring and summer.

We have one spot left for our April Mystery of Yin Retreat. We would love for it to be yours! A retreat centered on reawakening the creative feminine (and the intense power therein) April 12 - 15 at the gorgeous, secluded North Shore of Lake Superior. We're going to write our hearts out.

Or maybe you're holding out for our biggest annual retreat, Summer Solstice on Stout's Island. We like to think of that one as an ignition, a match strike, a hot sparkler for your creative year ahead. Solstice is half full as of March, so let us know if you want to crack things open in your writing in a big way this summer.

Finally, we're registering for a spring remote course on the essay, and not the boring kind of essay. The bright, burning, feral, too-hot-to-hold kind. The kind you can't stop thinking about for weeks after you've read it. If you want your essays to pierce the heart and stay there, join us!

Sunlight, moonlight, all the light, hello, light, I see you coming back! Every year, according to my Facebook “memories,” I announce with glee around this time that daylight savings is just around the corner. I guess this transition means a lot to me, this anticipation of a sun that stays above the horizon until after seven in the evening. Oh, how it buoys me. So, friends, watch for it! And be part of it, too. Because, I like to think this return of the light, based on other things I see happening in the world, is broader than the time of sunset. I like to think it's something we're all working for together right now. I'm grateful for that.

Meanwhile, thank you all so much for your enthusiasm and support in February while I experienced the intensity (so much intensity!) of my first artist residency. Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts was amazing—and if you ever have the chance to apply, you should! I had a truly transformative experience there that included an extensive revision of my novel, and am extremely grateful. Also, while in Wyoming, I learned that the first chapter of that same novel was selected as a finalist for the Lamar York Prize and will be published in the fall issue of the Chattahoochee Review. That’s very encouraging and makes me so happy!

Now, I’m off to Tampa with my daughter and co-teacher, Sophie, for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) conference. I’ll be presenting on Friday at 3 PM with four accomplished writers whose work and ethics I so admire: Bao Phi, Michael Torres, Jonathon Escoffery, and Caitlin McGill. Together, we will discuss the challenges and benefits—on the page and within the academy—of writing about coming from below the middle class. If you happen to be at AWP, please join us!

Moonrise at Brush Creek

As for upcoming retreats and classes, we have just two spots left for our Mystery of Yin Retreat April 12-15! Please do join us if you can. It’s a wonderful three-night retreat for women only in a secluded (closed for the season) lodge north of Grand Marais on the beautiful shore of Superior. We’ll write our hearts out in the best possible way. And the yoga instructor for that retreat, Allison Coffelt, has just published her first book, Maps are Lines We Draw. Allison and I will give a public reading together in Minneapolis on Tuesday, April 10, details forthcoming soon both here and on Facebook.

As for Solstice Retreat, we just started registering for that in January and are already half full! If this is your year to do the biggest retreat of our season, do reach out soon. It’s a wonderful week on the island, full of fire and creative catalyst that will absolutely show up in your writing. For some, the Solstice Retreat is even life changing, though all we promise is that your writing will change. In any case, we would love to write with you this summer so reach out soon if you have that retreat on your radar.

Finally, we have a remote class on the art of the person essay coming up in May, for which registration will open in March. Watch this newsletter and the Facebook page for more information in the next week or so. Our remote classes have proven to be a truly wonderful option for keeping the magic going between live classes and retreats. Two remote students published work this month, and another, who attended our revision class, said it turned her novel around. For us, remote classes were an experiment, so we’ve been incredibly delighted with the results!

Thank you again for everything. I am eternally grateful for my community of writers and writing students, which, in the end, are the same thing, yes?

Can you believe that as the year turns over, we will be graced with not one but two full moons? First the Wolf Moon, then a Blue Moon. Wow! What a time to set intentions, take hold of our lives, and make a run for our deepest desires. What a time to ask ourselves, once more, if we are breathing just a little and calling it a life … and if so, what better time to breathe more deeply and live more fully, today and every day.

My wish for myself, and you? That the year ahead be filled with radical, defiant art making despite—and indeed, in response to—the pressures of the world. Now, more than ever, art calls. Art catalyzes. Art transforms. I’m grateful to LA-based artist Lauren Bon for the arresting installation pictured above. The quote is from Bonn’s artist statement for a 2005 living sculpture, “Not A Cornfield.” Artists, take heed. Let's create to scale.

I, for one, will kick off 2018 with a four-week residency in Wyoming at Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts. The truth? While it’s a great honor to have been awarded this time and space, I am nervous about being away from home for a whole month, especially on a remote and secluded 55-acre ranch. There, I said it. I’m a little scared! But not as scared as I am grateful to the foundation for validating and supporting my work in this way. I’ve never written in a log studio on the shores of a creek in the shadows of the mountains. I plan to revise my novel to the howling soundtrack of Wyoming wind.

As for other ways to breathe, writing is my main art, but teaching is equally vital to me. Teaching makes me whole, and if you have studied with me, you know I love it with all my heart. So I’m thrilled to announce that registration is now open for two of our best loved and most intense writing retreats of the calendar year, Mystery of Yin and Summer Solstice. Both of these retreats can ignite and fuel your creative life in profound and lasting ways, according to the love letters we receive from those who attend.

Our Mystery of Yin retreat is for women only, and takes place April 12 – 14 on the shores of Lake Superior. This retreat offers a deep dive into the feminine creative spirit, offering carefully constructed writing exercises combined with gentle yin yoga (no experience necessary!), delicious meals, immersive art activities (again, no experience needed, we promise!), and lots of surprises. We have the historic Naniboujou Lodge all to ourselves for this very special retreat. You’ll leave with a clearer sense of your own work, a closer connection to your truest self, and a great momentum for carrying the work forward through the spring and summer.

And our sixth annual Summer Solstice Retreat on Stout’s Island takes place June 17 – 22. Our fifth anniversary retreat last year was nicknamed ER5 by attendees, many of whom reported it as literally life changing, and sometimes in surprising ways, like the writer who said the retreat transformed her marriage! While that's not our intention or our promise, we can say that if you show up and put your heart into it, you will leave with some powerful rocket fuel for your creative life, and perhaps for creating your overall life anew. If you’ve always wanted to attend an Elephant Rock Solstice Retreat and never have, this might be your year. We hope so! Because we’re planning another unforgettable week on the island.

Speaking of two roads diverging in a yellow wood, ten years ago, I gaped into the jaws of my own future, jaws yawning open and shut, mouthing the brutish question of whether I would ever return to my dream of writing. I counted the rows of triangular teeth between where I stood and what I most wanted. Meanwhile, time breathes through its mouth and we're put on this planet to love, be loved, and chase after our truest selves. I wrote about all this, plus being terrified, recently over at Past Ten.

Meanwhile, here we go again. A new year. Good riddance, 2017! Let's go reclaim our democracy, and, also, while we're at it, our writing lives. We know the crucial importance of beginnings, the urgency of opening acts, how the way we start sets up the way we finish. Join us this January for one of our remote 4-week workshops (or give the gift of a restart to some other worthy writer!):

The Visceral Self: Writing the Body, on the power of embodying our words on the page, of writing through flesh and blood and sensory images that capture and illuminate the experience of life in a body

Finally, a BIG HAPPY DANCE as we close out 2017: Elephant Rock teaching artist Sophie Ouellette-Howitz (who also happens to be my daughter, ahem!) just won first-place among nearly 500 entries to the Pigeon Pages Literary Contest with her beautiful essay, "Study of Bones." On top of that, the same beautiful essay has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Congratulations, Sophie! For those who don't know, Sophie and I are each other's first readers, and for that, I consider myself damn lucky.

As for me, I'm still slogging along with novel revisions and prepping for my residency at Brush Creek at the end of January. The packing list mentioned "Western wear. " Hmm. Still contemplating if or how I'll step into that new look.

Meanwhile, thinking of all of you warmly and wishing you the best of whatever holidays you celebrate. Hope to "see" some of you in class soon!

Desire is not a dirty word. In fact, when it comes to making art, we absolutely must yearn. To yearn is to breathe, and when we don't breathe, we suffocate. Committing to creativity requires some pain, whether the pain of facing fears, of sacrificing time for our art, of staring down rejection, or of becoming blocked and then wresting ourselves from the jaws of paralysis. Artistry is both beautiful and cruel. Therefore, to pursue the making of art, we must want it. A lot. Desire is the relentless current in which we must willingly swim.

As for my own writing desires, I am happy to say I've just published a new essay on sleeping, waking, and the trauma of Trump over at Eckleburg. I've also got a new short story, "Softer," coming out in Penn Review's winter issue, and a profile of the artist Nooshin Hakim Javadi coming out in Minnesota Magazine. And I'm feeling hugely thankful to those of you who wrote with me at The Heat of Autumn retreat a couple of weeks ago. What a marvelous day we had at Theodore Wirth, contemplating nature, the body, and what it means to pay attention in the world and on the page. A powerful and lovely day.

Anyway, Sophie and I had a grand time this fall teaching our first remote workshop, Fractured: The Art of Fragmented Writing, and our students wrote some kickass fragmented work and also told us amazing things about the course, which you can read here. One writer even said it was among the best courses she has ever taken in three decades of studying writing. So, if you want to kickstart your writing life in 2018, consider jumping into one of our courses as the year turns. We would be so happy to have you!

Meanwhile, thank you for being part of the Elephant Rock community. Much love to you as we enter into this season of gratitude.

It's almost here! Our intensive day of writing at Theodore Wirth Park, this Sunday. As of today, you can still join us, and we would love to have you there! We're gonna build some major inner fire while also basking in the flames of the actual pavilion fireplace. But fear not, the pavilion is indeed heated by means other than the fireplace. The fire is for, well, the other kind of heat. I'm a fire sign. What can I say?

Also, we've been having a blast in our first remote class, so we're about to announce two more, for January. We'll let you know in this newsletter when registration opens, and if you're on Facebook, you'll find it there, as well.

Last but not least, if you're on the cusp of submitting some work for publication and you aren't sure where to begin, Authors Publish has put together this helpful list of thirteen literary journals that are more approachable and easier to crack than many others. I hope it is useful to some of you!

Oh, one more last after the last. Happy Halloween to those of you who don't hate that holiday. Me? I have loved it all my life. No, I don't love how it's turned into a commercial shopping event, but I do dearly treasure walking outside in the crisp night air with family and friends and neighbors, standing on my porch with a huge pot of chili bubbling inside and outside, the rivers of children carrying their joy like lanterns. On Halloween, I can strive to see the miracle of the world through those children's eyes, if just for a night.

Do you see that unstable sun filtering through orange-brown oaks, pink maples, blood-red sumac? So much gloriousness packed into this short season, I want to take hold of it and not let go, which is exactly what we can't do, what I'm trying to learn I can't do, and yet. This beauty! It ravishes me.

So, I have been writing up a storm while fending off the pins and needles that come from having my novel being reviewed by agents. It was a blissful distraction of the best kind to spend three days earlier this month with a fantastic group of life writers at our fall session of Write for Your Life. To the writers who joined me to share words, craft, intelligence, and so much heart and corn chowder, I will never forget you.

Meanwhile, a blast of good fall news: I’m over the moon to say I’ve been awarded a residency by Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts in Wyoming. I can’t wait to see what all those mountains and sage brushes, cactuses and tumbleweeds I’ve been writing about actually look and smell like.

I also can’t wait for October 29, The Heat of Autumn, a beautiful one-day writing intensive weaving in meditative and sensory elements to build inner fire and take our writing to the next level all winter long. Join us! We have room for you and would love, love, love to write with you. And we know it will be fruitful. As one of our students recently said, “[this] class is one of the best I have ever taken, and that’s saying a lot given that I have taken many dozens over the past three decades.” When you write with Elephant Rock, we take your writing as seriously as our own.

I hope to see you soon, and thank you so much for making this writing life such a sweet one.

I'm so very excited to tell you now, as September gives sway to October, that registration is open for a very special day-long intensive workshop for creative writing and meditation on October 29 at the beautiful Theodore Wirth Pavilion in Minneapolis. It's called The Heat of Autumn, in honor of the Jane Hirshfield poem, and that's what we intend to do: build inner heat by spiraling through creative writing exercises, sensory awareness and meditation, and gorgeous autumnal sound baths using Tibetan singing bowls, all the while spiraling deeper and deeper into the creative unconscious with each three-part cycle. Our creative pilot lights are always lit. Really, truly. But are our burners firing? That's what this day is about.

I'm co-teaching this special workshop with my friend, Tyler Lewke. Tyler has attended several of my retreats and workshops and has led meditation, chanting, and labyrinth walks for us, so perhaps you have met him! Tyler is an Upasaka (ordained Buddhist vow taker) as well as the president and operational director of the Blue Lotus Temple in Crystal Lake, Illinois. He is the author of Empty, Empty, Happy, Happy: The Essential Teachings of a Simple Monk, which chronicles the core teachings of Bhanta Sujata, and he is currently completing his first spiritual memoir.

As for what you will take away, this workshop provides you the time to produce several short pieces of writing—these might be kindling for longer work to be completed later or simply mirrors into your inner world as it is currently unfolding. You will gain a heightened awareness of the natural world as well as a deeper understanding and appreciation for your body’s place living, breathing place within that world. Finally, you will have the opportunity to surprise yourself with the discovery of new, enlivening, and healing language, images, and metaphors for the precise articulation of inner and outer truths, both light and dark. And you will have the opportunity to ignite your creative fire as deep autumn sets in.

Please join us! And inquire soon because space is limited. Meanwhile, our Fractured class on fragmented is a blast! And our fall session of Write for Your Life is coming up in just over a week, so am very much looking forward to seeing some of you there. Keep writing!

Let's talk about the many things that break: waves, light, fevers, losing streaks, hearts. Last week, my two daughters each left for their current homes: one in Oregon, one in China. Three weeks earlier, my son left for his new home in Connecticut. That's a lot of leaving. A lot of breaking.

A heap of beautiful breaking. Isn't that just like September? To sear into us with its quietly devastating ruin, the ruin of change, the ruin that precedes forced rest and renewal? This is my favorite time of the year, by far, as the weight of so much natural abundance curls in on itself and melts away again in some kind of alchemical miracle. This is the season that reminds me how searing beauty can so sweetly ache.

And friends, this is the perfect season for writing, the best season, if I do say, and we have a few opportunities for you to join us in the coming weeks.

First, I'm excited to say I'll be reading from my novel at the River Falls Lit Crawl on Saturday, October 14. I'll be reading with Dave Wood and Dan Woll at 1 PM at Gallery 120, if you're in the area, I would so love to see you there!

Second, one last spot in our first-ever remote writing workshop, Art of the Fractured, where we will explore the mighty art of fragmented writing, looking at the works of giants such as Cheryl Strayed, Claudia Rankine, Melissa Febos, and many more, while also producing several short and two longer works during the eight-week course. Read more about it here, and grab that last spot while you can, as the class begins September 20.

Next, we had one cancellation for our most popular weekend writing workshop, Write for Your Life, October 6-8 in Minneapolis. This is an intense, deep-dive into the techniques, devices, and ways of seeing that bring life writing alive on the page and move it away from the pitfalls of self-absorption toward powerful shared themes and universal meaning.

Finally, mark your calendars for The Heat of Autumn, a one-day creative writing & meditation workshop on Sunday, October 29 at the gorgeous Theodore Wirth Pavilion. I will co-facilitate this short but intense retreat with my friend & Buddhist monk Tyler Lewke. Registration for this autumnal day of spiraling deep into the senses and beneath the currents of consciousness, during which we will cycle between extraordinary creative writing exercises, guided meditation, and sensory awareness activities including sound baths with Tibetan singing bowls, will open at the end of this week. I'll send out one more invitation then before online promotion begins.

Oh, and my private mentoring roster is full now, but I have a waiting list for January and would love to add you if you believe the focused attention of a private mentor may help you move your work forward. Just contact me at elephantrockretreats@gmail.com to request information or to be added to the queue as a candidate for this work in the new year.

Oh, Summer! How busy and eventful you have been! Many of you know I completed my MFA in Fiction at Vermont College of Fine Arts this month, and I also had the great honor of representing my class as speaker at graduation. As if that wasn't enough excitement, I also completed my novel, for which I'm now (while continuing to obsessively revise) seeking an agent, a process I anticipate may be slow and arduous. Then again, writing itself tends to be, in the long view, slow and arduous, so. In any case, if you believe in things like crossing fingers, I would never turn down a shred of extra luck.

Meanwhile, I think some of you know I serve as nonfiction editor at Orison Books, which is about to close its annual Anthology Awards contest (August 1). If you have a short piece (under 8,000 words) or three poems to enter, please do! Visit orisonbooks.com for more information or to submit.

And the roster of Elephant Rock classes and workshops is filling out nicely now that fall is around the corner! Also, I won't say that again about fall being around the corner. I know how upsetting that can be for my Minnesota friends. Though I did see a yellow leaf drop today through the screen of green out my window. But no, no, shush, shush.

As for Elephant Rock offerings, we have two Write for Your Life memoir intensive workshops this fall, both in Minneapolis, one September 22-24 (several spots open) and one October 6-8 (almost full). These beloved Friday-Sunday workshops are intense, challenging, and inspiring for writers at all experience levels and I would love to welcome you.

Also, after many requests, we've finally created a model we like for our first-ever remote class, Art of the Fractured. We needed to envision a remote way of working that could capture as much as possible of the foundational warmth and intimacy of an Elephant Rock in-person offering, and we believe we have now. Running eight weeks from September 20 - November 8, Art of the Fractured looks at how to use the ephemera of life to write in nonlinear and broken ways, to cut, erase, collage, and break apart what is in order to create ... something else, and, in so doing, amplify meaning and resonance in the work. Fractured will include lively phone-in class sessions, detailed instructor feedback, illustrative readings and guided discussions, and inventive exercises intended to result in several micro essays and two slightly longer, complete works.

Last but not least, I have two spots left for private writing students, a tailored and intensive way to bring your work forward with one-on-one mentorship and feedback. I work with only a limited number of writers in this way, while also volunteering as a mentor through two organizations (The Association of Writers & Writing Programs and the Minnesota Prison Writers Workshop). In all cases, I find such one-on-one incredibly rewarding and enlivening. If you are interested in working this way, just review my mentoring page and inquire by email (elephantrockretreats@gmail.com).

That's a lot of business! As I said, it's been a busy summer! I promise my next post will have more whimsy and perhaps a bit of autumn wind. Oops. But speaking of fall, I'll reading from my novel on October 14 at the River Falls Literary Arts Festival in Wisconsin, along with Tekla Madsen, David Wood, and Michael Norman. More details coming soon on that! Would be super fun to see some of you there!

Well, when I promised I would not spam you with this blog, I guess I meant it, since it's been six months since I last wrote in this space. A very intense six months in our world, as I am sure all of you have been feeling deeply, as well.

In many ways, it's only now that I am beginning to come home to my senses, at least in part, since the disorientation and heartbreak of our very unpresidential election. To those writers who joined me at Naniboujou Lodge on the shores of Lake Superior for the Mystery of Yin writing retreat that weekend immediately following the election, I cannot thank you enough. I never could have anticipated, when I booked those dates for the retreat, exactly how "deep and dark" November would feel. Ultimately, however, that gorgeous lodge and crazy beautiful shore full of writer energy and heart under a super moon was exactly what I needed to begin the process of resistance, including and perhaps especially through my art, which is the one way I know best.

“To make people free is the aim of art, therefore art for me is the science of freedom.” (Joseph Beuys, 1921-1986)

Meanwhile, despite my quiet here, and despite the long road back home to my senses, I have been dizzyingly busy since August when I last posted to you. First and most important is the upcoming Fifth Annual Elephant Rock Summer Solstice Retreat. As always, the retreat will take place on the incomparable and ever more magical Stout's Island Lodge. We have three spots left as of mid-March, and I hope you will join us. We'll explore, as we always do, all kinds of unconventional side doors into our creative unconscious. We'll also try some new tricks I've picked up in the last year, including some techniques for writing very short pieces that pack a punch. Summer Solstice Retreat is always a highlight of my year; much of my best work begins there, and I can't wait to write for a week with some of you.

Second, I have had some good writing news this past half year, the highlights of which are that my essay Four Dogs, Maybe Five was selected by judge Paul Lisicky for second place in the Proximity Essay awards, and has also been selected to appear in that journal's forthcoming print anthology. And my short story Family, Family, which explores the competing shapes of power and love as experienced by a first-grade boy who cannot quite find his way with his class and a brand-new teacher unsure how to help him, won second place in The Masters Review Fall Fiction Contest judged by the amazing Kelly Link.

Meanwhile, my novel is nearing completion and it will be, in its full draft, my creative thesis for graduation from Vermont College of Fine Arts this July. After that will begin the hard work of revision and an agent search, but that's later. For now, it's just me and this draft, in active, sweaty labor day after day. I can hardly wait to push.

Thank you for being part of my artistic community, a community I value more with every day that passes. I am grateful for your presence in my life, however near or distant, and perhaps I shall see you this summer at Stout's!

The other day, after dropping my husband, Jon, at the airport, I had to lie down for a bit of a nap. When I woke up, I saw these angel wings on the ceiling. They were even moving, like real wings. But they only lasted a moment, and then they were gone. That's just how things work sometimes.

Did I tell you that Lillie, my youngest, left in June for a whole year in China? That happened right before our fourth annual Summer Solstice Retreat, which was indescribably wonderful, as evidenced by the amazing song we wrote together on the island with Brianna Lane and also by the fact that every single writer, for the first time ever in the history of Elephant Rock retreats, leapt off the dock for the ritual jump. I mean, it's always allowed to "leap in spirit," and that totally counts. But having every single physical body in the actual splash was pretty cool. As the amazing Jan Taylor, who so gracefully led our yoga and meditation, put it, "This is a one-hundred-percent group." And they were!

Other things happened this summer, which, by the way, evaporated as quickly as a morning dream. For example, my firstborn, Sophie, moved from Philadelphia to Portland, Oregon. And my son, Max, moved home temporarily, between one apartment and another. Changes and moving and missing, this was the theme of my summer. But all around me the natural world just keeps doing what the natural world does. It's both baffling and comforting. Like the family of wild turkeys that has moved into our neighborhood, two parents and about a dozen babies.

Turkeys, it turns out, are very slow moving birds. You notice this when the whole family crosses the road, single file, as birds are wont to do, and a line of cars backs up ten deep waiting for them to get to the other side. And sometimes they take you by complete surprise, like this morning when I walked from the dining table to the kitchen to get a second cup of coffee and, as I passed by the picture window overlooking the back deck, saw a gigantic creature perched right there on the railing. Its mate and the rest of the brood were ambling about the yard, poking around the fire pit and the back fence, looking relaxed and a little confused.

So, yes, turkeys. Other things are somewhat more urgent and less ambling, like the fact that I am currently completing a critical thesis on the provocation of emotion in fiction through the lens of craft, neuroscience, and personal experience. Books I am leaning upon heavily include The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk and The Feeling of What Happens by Antonio Damasio. I highly recommend both of these books for anyone deeply interested in the connection between emotion and the body and how this shapes our lives (which, as it turns out, works exactly the same way on the page as in real life).

Speaking of the page, my most recent stories include this short bit about prom and the nature of forgetting for the essay section of the Star Tribuneand a longer reflection on what it's like to be young, pregnant, terrified, and overjoyed all at once over at the Eckleburg Review. Meanwhile, the novel is close, so close that bits of it are shaping themselves into real stories that stand alone. So much so that one of them is out for submission now. It earned an honorable mention from Glimmer Train this spring, as well as a finalist slot the New South contest, and for now is still floating around waiting to land. I'm crossing my fingers.

But I can't keep them crossed all the time because of the writing, obviously, and also because the school year is upon us, which means teaching. This year I will be assistant teaching in the some writing courses in the University of Minnesota's Health Sciences PhD and Master's programs. It's a wonderful way to challenge myself to think harder about language, because I have to apply what I know about creative writing to science and data. I'm continually amazed by how much the principles overlap. Good writing is good writing, whatever the genre.

As for Elephant Rock, I am so excited to announce that the Mystery of Yin Retreat for women is finally back by popular demand. This time, the retreat will take place on the shores of Lake Superior in November at the historic and secluded (closed for the season!) Naniboujou Lodge, perched between the lake and 3,000 acres of wilderness hiking! I'll guide writing specific to drawing out the yin creative energy of the feminine, while the wonderful Allison Coffelt will lead yoga and meditation while also supporting the writing workshops. Other surprises are still in the works. Please consider joining us for this very special three nights on the big lake this fall. Meanwhile, enjoy this magical thing that is happening all around us, this slide into fall. The spice of it is already filling the night air. It's so dark, so fruity, so rich. But it only lasts a moment. Then it's gone.

Sometimes things go around twice when you least expect them to. That's the case with my story, "Tumbleweeds," which won a second-place Curt Johnson Award last year in a contest sponsored by the gorgeous print journal, december magazine. I was over the moon!

But because december is a print journal, only subscribers saw the story. Until now ... because the fine editors at Nowhere, a literary journal dedicated to "travel, broadly defined," picked up "Tumbleweeds" and have given it a new life online. If you like (and I hope you will), you can read the story here.

Meanwhile, I'm preparing for our week at Stout's Island, which is just around the corner, after which I will be headed to Vermont for my summer residency. I'm excited both for the revision of my novel draft, which I'll begin this July, and for the birth of some new stories I haven't even dreamt of yet, stories that are nothing more than distant buzzing, flitting shadows in my peripheral vision, hungry mouths I can't yet see.

Yesterday I was walking around my block and I saw this blue ball in the bushes, and I had to capture an image of it, because it was so overwhelmingly obvious. I mean, have you ever seen such a first line of a sad story about, about what? About a child who lost his bright blue ball? No. Not that one. This story is about a grandma whose three-year-old granddaughter was going to come for a visit but didn't because her parents were fighting, and the grandma had been waiting outside with the ball, which was brand new. She was watching expectantly for the girl to come, until the phone rang inside the house. This grandma still has a landline, by the way. So she went in to answer the phone, and it was her son, saying, forget about it, Mom, we're not coming today. In her worry and her disappointment, the grandma had to lie down on the couch. She forgot about the ball, and the wind took it.

Sorry about that. Maybe it doesn't have to be so sad. Maybe the story is about a little boy who believes in magic, and he planted that ball under that shrub on purpose to make something happen, something very, very big. Something crucial. It has to do with an idea he has about Mars. And now he's waiting. Of course, we can presume that something is definitely going to happen. I think, though, it won't be what he is expecting. But he won't lose his faith in the ball. Not yet.

That reminds me that when I was ten, I had a whole family of super balls. I kept them in a shoebox house. I had made walls and furniture for it, too, and the little colored balls slept in the little cardboard beds and ate at the little cardboard table and looked out the little cut-into-the-cardboard windows and thought gigantic super ball thoughts about the future. Sometimes the balls played with the jacks. I was lonely, yes. But this was fun.

What I'm amazed by is that first lines really are just sitting there, all the time. Second and third lines, too. All the lines. It's just, they're shy. They hide. You really have to look with your eyes, and all of your other senses, too. But that bright blue ball! Man, that one was right there, practically hollering. I love it when that happens. It reminds me that the world is a magical place. The story is always looking for you; you just need to look back.

If want to look on Stout's Island this summer, we have two last spots left for the Summer Solstice Retreat (at least, as of this writing, we do). As always, we would love to have you.

Meanwhile, I wrote a story about forgetting. It was supposed to be about prom, but it didn't turn out that way. Luckily, my editor at the Star Tribune published it anyway. You can read it here. I hope you will. I also hope you, too, are writing!

That's not me or my dog. Or my banjo. But since we have a few spots remaining for the Fourth Annual Summer Solstice Retreat, and we really hope you will join us, I thought I would write and say, Hey, here's a kid and a dog and a banjo! Also, how's your writing going, and would it help to spend a week at Stout's Island discovering what lies beyond the edge of the story you think you know?

To lead you up to why I love Stout's, I'll paint a little picture of my writing lately. Which does involve dogs, sort of, but no banjos (yet). I broke a personal record last month with thirty thousand words between my novel (the end of the first draft is in distant sight!) and my creative nonfiction. Upcoming publications include essays in The Doctor T.J. Eckelburg Review and Nowhere Literary Journal. I also had the great honor of being selected as a mentor in the Association of Writers & Writing Program's Writer to Writer Program, and I can't wait to head out to Los Angeles for the conference later this month. All in all, I'm spinning in circles with excitement. And dizziness.

BUT LATELY, I have been writing mostly about dogs. That is to say, the dogs I grew up with, their doggish love and their doggish oddities, and also the ways in which they went missing, sometimes without comment. So, to be honest, what I’m writing isn't after all about dogs, but rather something several degrees to the west of dogs.

Dorothy Allison and me, at the Tin House Winter Workshop!

To my amazement, this not-about-dogs story, which I had the privilege of workshopping with Dorothy Allison in February, has grown into a 10,000 word piece that I'm now revising for one of my favorite literary journals (one I can’t name until it’s official official official because I am much too superstitious for that). But suffice it to say it’s got me all aflutter and, here’s the part I want you to remember: this whole story that's not about dogs started with a fantasy fiction prompt related not to canines but to stairs that are both necessary and useless and powers that are not just gifts but afflictions. Mind you, I don’t write fantasy fiction! Or read it, for that matter, except on the rarest of occasions. So the entire prompt was a lark. Yet, it became something other than what it was, something that grabbed hold of my last rib and wouldn’t let go.

THIS IS RELATED to what essayist Heather Kirn Lanier is talking about over on Brevity’s nonfiction blog this week, as she explores the concept of essays as "rooms with taffy walls." Writes Lanier about the essay, “The more I punched it, poked it, stretched it, the more interesting the thing it could house."

It’s also related to what poet and memoirist Nick Flynn said at that same Tin House workshop I attended recently, where I workshopped my not-dog story. He said, “the interesting story lies just beyond the edge of the one we think we’re telling.” That’s where the good stuff hides out—just on the other side of the periphery.

The more I practice this back brain method of writing, the more unusual material I dredge up—like, stuff I don’t even recognize, even though it’s clearly mine. Which inevitably ignites my curiosity. What is this broken thing? Where did it come from? Why do I carry it around with me? That curiosity, in turn, ignites my empathy and eventually my amazement—both for the thing and for the people who surrounded and touched the thing. Who are these people, and more importantly, who were they then, and before then? Also, who was I? This process eventually fills the writing with a pulse. I guess it's called life. It's certainly richer and more complicated than anything floating on the surface in plain sight.

Writing from the back brain requires some experimenting. It requires some risk. And sometimes what you find is worthless old junk. It might even be sharp. Like, a rusty old drawer pull might be just that: a rusty old drawer pull. But sometimes, that drawer pull is the key to the whole story. The only way to find out is to test it. Maybe on a drawer, maybe not. Will you cut your hand? I don't know. You might. But that, too, can be extremely interesting. There are no rules to this. There is only the intrepid willingness to go into the uncharted places, the ones no one has mapped yet, especially not you. This method of writing is also a great exercise in moving beyond fear, because you willingly expose yourself to the risk of turning up worthless junk over and over again. So much safer to insist on the predictable prose you already know how to write. But will it surprise you? Will it make you breathless? Will it, in the end, matter?

IF YOU WANT to go on a breathless search for a drawer pull in a taffy room and have an amazing adventure in the process, please do consider joining us at Stout’s Island this summer for the Elephant Rock’s Fourth Annual Summer Solstice Retreat. We would love to have you there. This retreat includes meals and lodging on what can only be called a magical island. It also includes two daily writing workshops, nightly readings, yoga and meditation, and a whole bunch of fun shenanigans. It's a week like none other. And you will leave with something unexpected and unforgettable: a part of your story you didn’t already know.